She knows it has been given to the
Queen-Dauphin; she will think Chatelart knew that Queen's hand, and
that the letter is from her; she will fancy the person of whom the
letter expresses a jealousy, is perhaps herself; in short, there is
nothing which she may not think, and there is nothing which I ought not
to fear from her thoughts; add to this, that I am desperately in love
with Madam de Martigues, and that the Queen-Dauphin will certainly show
her this letter, which she will conclude to have been lately writ.
Thus shall I be equally embroiled both with the person I love most, and
with the person I have most cause to fear. Judge, after this, if I
have not reason to conjure you to say the letter is yours, and to beg
of you to get it out of the Queen-Dauphin's hands."
"I am very well satisfied," answered the Duke de Nemours, "that one
cannot be in a greater embarrassment than that you are in, and it must
be confessed you deserve it; I have been accused of being inconstant in
my amours, and of having had several intrigues at the same time, but
you out-go me so far, that I should not so much as have dared to
imagine what you have undertaken; could you pretend to keep Madam de
Themines, and be at the same engaged with the Queen? did you hope to
have an engagement with the Queen, and be able to deceive her? she is
both an Italian and a Queen, and by consequence full of jealousy,
suspicion, and pride. As soon as your good fortune, rather than your
good conduct, had set you at liberty from an engagement you was
entangled in, you involved yourself in new ones, and you fancied that
in the midst of the Court you could be in love with Madam de Martigues
without the Queen's perceiving it: you could not have been too careful
to take from her the shame of having made the first advances; she has a
violent passion for you; you have more discretion than to tell it me,
and I than to ask you to tell it; it is certain she is jealous of you,
and has truth on her side."
"And does it belong to you," interrupted
the Viscount, "to load me with reprimands, and ought not your own
experience to make you indulgent to my faults? However I grant I am to
blame; but think, I conjure you, how to draw me out of this
difficulty"; "I think you must go to the Queen-Dauphin as soon as she
is awake, and ask her for the letter, as if you had lost it." "I have
told you already," replied the Duke de Nemours, "that what you propose
is somewhat extraordinary, and that there are difficulties in it which
may affect my own particular interest; but besides, if this letter has
been seen to drop out of your pocket, I should think it would be hard
to persuade people that it dropped out of mine.""I thought I had told
you," replied the Viscount, "that the Queen-Dauphin had been informed
that you dropped it."